Big Ten Network strives for national reputation

That's the number of households — as it has been since cracking the 40 million mark in 2010 — that the Big Ten Network president vowed his channel would reach by 2015.

He's on pace so far, with a distribution of about 53 million in North America and the University of Maryland and Rutgers University opening up myriad new potential customers when they join the conference next fall.

"Once a network hits 60 million, there's a mindset in the industry that you're now a true national network," he said. "There are still some pockets of the country who think of us as a regional network, (but) there are more people who have the network outside of the Big Ten area than inside the Big Ten area."

BTN's overall TV ratings are up 12 percent year over year, and the network's profits "are the highest they've ever been, and next year they'll be higher," said an optimistic Mr. Silverman, who has shepherded the network since its inception in 2007.

Photo

The reasons for the continued growth go beyond the strength of its football and basketball and programs, he said.

The network will carry more live football games this fall than ever, topping last year's 42. And while the many of the top-tier games are shown on ESPN (per the conference's 10-year media rights deal that goes through the 2015-16 season), Mr. Silverman says BTN's growth has earned it the right to get an even larger share of premier conference matchups when the conference selects a new rights partner.

"We can definitely support some higher-quality matchups for football and basketball. The network has grown beyond what most people thought it would be when it launched," he said.

Higher-profile games also mean higher advertising rates.

Revenue from ads is the network's second-largest source of income, behind fees from cable and satellite providers, and that bucket has grown every year since the network started.

The next step, Mr. Silverman said, is changing ad buyer habits from purchasing spots on TV and the web separately to buying them together.

This past football season marked the first time all games shown on BTN television were in sync with those on BTN2Go, the network's smart device app, and on BTN.com, allowing commercials to run consistently across all three if a media buyer wanted.

"You would think that if someone is buying an ad on the linear network, there would be an accompanying buy on BTN2Go, which is the same game, same type of viewer," Mr. Silverman said. The percentage of fans watching games on TV still represents about 90 percent of the audience, but that online viewership is growing, he said.

"But (digital ad buys are) still significantly behind where the linear network is," he said. "Having an aggregated buy is very challenging, but it's a big focus of ours." The network aims to have fewer advertisers and give them broader exposure.

In the meantime, BTN is using its growing digital content arm to lure more cable subscribers in areas where the network is not part of a basic cable package.

Those who use the BTN2Go app can access certain content, but they can watch live games only if they are a paid BTN subscriber.

"We need to provide enough value to that person that's on the fence about whether to buy the network that it makes it a very compelling offer that for a few extra bucks a month, you get the linear network, but you also get all these digital elements as well."

GROWING IN CHICAGO

While BTN aims to spread its wings more nationally, it's also turning more attention to its own neighborhood.

The network's live programming will make more references to the fact that BTN's headquarters is in Chicago in hopes of appealing to local non-Big Ten alumni that Mr. Silverman sees as an untapped audience.

"I think there's enough content here that we could expand that appeal," he said. "We just want to make it more well-known that we're here and we've got some programming that you might be interested in."

Leading that effort is next month's second annual BTN Big10K race, which blew away the network's expectations when it made its debut last year with 5,000 participants.

"That really opened our eyes. We had only planned for 1,000," he said. This year, the network is expecting to draw 15,000 runners to the downtown event.

Of course, 5K and 10K races in the city are as popular as ever these days, regardless of who's staging the event, but BTN is happy to ride the wave.